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Hello everyone! A brief but important announcement today: your first look at the official Venus Patrol logo! Let's not waste any time!

BEHOLD: CORY SCHMITZ HAS DESIGNED THE LOGO FOR VENUS PATROL

I've been extremely lucky enough to work with designer Cory Schmitz not just on the logo, but on the entire visual design of Venus Patrol from top to bottom -- as well as a number of related side projects I still have yet to announce -- so consider this just the first taste of a lot of more amazing visuals to come.

What's the meaning behind the message? I wanted a logo that gave a sense of a "search", a sense of a "broadcast", and something that would be instantly arresting -- something that would express that almost inexpressible sense of "BARELY AUDIBLE RADIO TRANSMISSIONS ABOUT SUPER COOL SEXY AWESOME INDIE GAMES MUSIC ART COMIX CULTURE FROM THE FIRST OUTPOST ON ANOTHER WORLD", and I'm pretty positive that he nailed it. It also doesn't hurt that that "eye" is now firmly established as a recurring theme throughout all things Venus Patrol, from Mikko Walamies' logo subtly embedded in the Kickstarter T-shirts to Vlambeer's GUN GODZ.

I'll have a whole bunch of these (glow in the dark!) buttons available at the upcoming Gaite Lyrique show and other events down the road. Be sure to stop by & pick one up! Oh, and speaking of:

SOUND SHAPES WILL BE APPEARING AT THE GAITE LYRIQUE'S VENUS PATROL EXHIBIT

I mentioned in the last update that there was one final game that I'd be bringing with me to the Gaite Lyrique show, and I'm excited to say that it will be Queasy Games' SOUND SHAPES. There are a lot of reasons why, most notably that it's doing amazing work at beautifully blending art + music + game culture: more or less the MO of Venus Patrol itself.

There are myriad other familial ties: level design & production by Mathew Kumar of exp. renown, music and art by #sworcery's Jim Guthrie and Superbrothers (in addition to exclusive new tracks by Beck and co-designer Shaw-Han Liem, of long-time favorite I Am Robot And Proud), and art direction by none less than Cory Schmitz himself.

In fact, if you pre-order the game on the PlayStation Network now, you get this super beautiful PS3 theme designed by Cory, as well. More details on that are on this Mathew-penned update on the Sony blog right over here.

OK! Stay tuned for one more important announcement tomorrow -- you can get a hint of what that might be by looking up at tonight's sky...

Hello everyone! This post is gonna be a doozy, so sit back and strap yourself in and let's go at this in sections, because there's a lot to get through, and some of the awesomest announcements are being saved to the end.

PACKAGES FOR KICKSTARTER BACKERS ARE NOW BEING PROCESSED & ON THEIR WAY TO YOUR DOOR.

Every package has been stuffed, sealed, and is currently being worked through by the extremely awesome folks of the Anderson Lane Pak Mail (tell them Brandon sent you!), thanks to a small army of local helping hands -- David Kalina, George Royer, Jo Lammert, Wiley Wiggins, Rachel Weil & especially my extremely patient roommates Dave+Michelle, who endured weeks of a sea of padded envelopes overflowing their mid-century modern living room.

Here's what you'll be receiving, in addition to the T-shirt and the prints, both of which you've seen in prior updates:

The special Venus Patrol edition of exp.-3, by Mathew Kumar, who's just wrapped production on Queasy's super brilliant SOUND SHAPES, due out August the 7th for your PlayStation 3 and Vita. Spot Mathew here in this promotional video giggling with his hands over his mouth, as shot by Toronto's own Mark Rabo -- coincidentally, the same person who shot the testimonial video for all Toronto-ites in the Venus Patrol Kickstarter video itself.

A hand-bagged pack of James Kochalka's Monster Miis, henceforth to be known as MONSTAGRAMS… get it?? Because they're like GPOY filtered portraits… Anyway, James recently did a great post on these just before SDCC, which you can read over here. I love the way these turned out: seeing the Miis themselves jump out of the QR codes on the back and into your 3DS never stops being magical, and now you can be sure each Monster will continue to live on in your WiiU.

MUSI ARTE CODE stickers designed by Devine Lu Linvega. So here's the thing: I know in the original post I said these would be embroidered patches, but the further I got into development there, I realized they were going to lose a lot of the finer detail. So, instead, we made super high-quality weatherproof vinyl stickers, which came out great. Besides, we figured you were just going to drop that patch in a desk-drawer and never see it again, whereas you might actually put a sticker on your laptop or something. If you feel super ripped off by stickers over a patch, please let me know, we can maybe work something out if your denim jacket's super screaming for it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance, the Moon Grotto 7" by Scntfc, a deluxe gatefold package pressed on Kickstarter-exclusive "bright-moon" white vinyl. In a very short time, Scntfc will be releasing very limited quantities of the record on standard "dark-moon" black vinyl, along with a digital only package.

As a super special bonus, we've sprinkled ULTRA, ULTRA RARE "PINK-MOON" copies of the record in with the Kickstarter shipments. Only TEN of you will receive these like "golden ticket" editions -- let us know if you're one of the lucky ones and we'll have something special for you.

A DIGITAL PACKAGE OF MOON GROTTO 7" FILES WILL BE ON ITS WAY TO YOU LATER TODAY.

We're really excited for you to hear this EP, and we know it's been a hell of a wait (on everyone's end, believe me), so we're going to be sending you MP3s of the Moon Grotto 7". Be sure to check your spam filters for the mail on that -- I've been having a string of bad luck with those.

We ask only that you please not share/YouTube/etc. the songs contained within: as above, Scntfc will be releasing these himself to the general public in a very short amount of time, we just wanted to give backers a little bit of a jump.

BONUS: SCNTFC'S SAINTS OF INFINITY RECORD IS NOW ALSO AVAILABLE ON BANDCAMP.

In preparations for today's mega-drop, we did a lot of reminiscing about the record that first introduced me to Scntfc, SAINTS OF INFINITY, released ages ago on Slabco Records. It was then that we realized it wasn't currently available digitally, so he's just now released that as a "name-your-price" download. I highly recommend you pick this up (or at least start by sampling Part 9), it remains one of my favorite records over a decade later, and -- as you'll see in another Kickstarter post today -- is directly responsible for the Moon Grotto collaboration itself.

AUGUST 7TH-10TH HAS BEEN DECLARED "VENUS PATROL WEEK" IN PARIS, FRANCE.

I will be in Paris from August 4th through the 13th, in attendance all throughout that week, and will have a number of games on display: Venus Patrol originals CAPSULE & GUN GODZ -- in their first public exhibition, Neil Thapen's VENUS PATROL -- the inspiration for this whole initiative itself, a special Moon Grotto video for #sworcery newcomers, Keita Takahashi's NOBY NOBY BOY -- obviously near and very dear to my heart, a special pre-release iPad version of Steph Thirion's FARAWAY, and one other special appearance that I'll wait until later to announce.

KEITA TAKAHASHI WILL BE IN ATTENDANCE SATURDAY, AUGUST 11TH.

All of this culminates with Keita Takahashi himself, delivering a "Talking While Drawing" session the Saturday following Venus Patrol week, which I'll be introducing and participating in (hopefully helping to strike a good talking/drawing balance). Tickets are now available for this session, which you should probably hop on now if you are/plan to be in Paris around this time!

THE XOXO ARCADE WILL BE CURATED BY VENUS PATROL.

And finally, Andy Baio & Andy McMillan's recently Kickstarted XOXO -- an arts and technology festival coming to Portland, Oregon September 13th through 16th -- will include a fully-stocked indie game arcade on Friday, September 14th, from 7PM to midnight, curated by Venus Patrol.

While the XOXO conference portion is sold out, the Arcade will be open to the public. Stay tuned in to further XOXO communication for more information regarding how you can get in & final lineup details -- many of the developers above will be in attendance! The festival will also feature a live performance from FEZ composer Disasterpeace, so definitely also stay tuned for more information on that.

YOU HAVE MADE IT TO THE END.

And you probably still have pertinent questions! Always questions. All will be answered in time. In the meantime, stay tuned for the next guest post by Scntfc and Superbrothers, and be on the lookout for a Moon Grotto 7" digital package very soon.